Updates

Brazil's Senate Leader Removed From Office

Nacho Doce / Reuters

The leader of the Brazilian Senate was removed from office Monday night in yet another in a series of corruption scandals that have plagued the South American country. Marco Aurélio Mello, a justice on Brazil’s Supreme Court, ruled that because Renan Calheiros, the Senate leader, was facing a trial for graft, he should be removed from his position. The case alleges Calheiros arranged for a lobbyist to pay for his child support for a daughter conceived in an extramarital affair. Already this year, President Dilma Rousseff was ousted from office and Eduardo Cunha, the former speaker of the lower house, was jailed. Tensions between the legislature and the judiciary remain high, as the country’s legislature considers a bill that would gut prosecutorial powers in going after graft among public officials. Calheiros, the ousted Senate leader, was gearing up to hold a vote on the bill. On Sunday, thousands of people took to the streets across the country to protest the bill. While he was removed from the leadership position, Calheiros will keep his seat in the Senate.

Comet Ping Pong Gunman Charged

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Edgar M. Welch, the North Carolina man who walked into a Washington pizzeria with an assault rifle looking to confirm a fake online news story, was charged with four criminal counts Monday. According to court documents, which The New York Timesobtained, Welch read that the Comet Ping Pong restaurant was “harboring sex slaves, and he wanted to see for himself if they were there.” He caused panic in Northwest DC Sunday when he fired his gun into the floor of the restaurant. No one was hurt. On Monday, he was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon and carrying an unlicensed gun, among other counts. Welch, a 28-year-old, was driven by a far-right conspiracy theory that has targeted the owner of Comet Ping Pong and top Democrats. He surrendered to police after he said he found no evidence of child sex trafficking, searching the restaurant for 45 minutes.

Prosecutors Can Use Bill Cosby's 2006 Deposition in Sexual-Assault Trial

Mark Makela / Reuters

Prosecutors in Bill Cosby’s upcoming sexual-assault trial can use damaging testimony the comedian gave in a 2006 deposition, a Pennsylvania judge ruled Monday. In the deposition, which the New York Times published excerpts of last year, the 79-year-old comedian confirmed that he had given women drugs and alcohol prior to sexual encounters—testimony Cosby’s lawyers say he gave on the condition that he wouldn’t face criminal charges in the civil case brought by Andrea Constand, one of more than 50 women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault. In a pretrial ruling, Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill concluded that no such promise was made. The ruling addresses one of two pretrial issues to be determined ahead of Cosby’s June 2017 court date. The other issue will determine how many of Cosby’s accusers will be allowed to testify as part of the prosecution’s case, arguments for which are scheduled to take place next week.

South Carolina Judge Declares a Mistrial for Former Officer Michael Slager

Mic Smith / AP

The trial of former South Carolina police officer Michael Slager, who shot and killed Walter Scott, an unarmed black man who ran from his vehicle, ended Monday in a mistrial. Slager was charged with three crimes, including murder, for shooting Scott five times in the back shortly after he was pulled over during a traffic stop. The April 2015 incident was caught almost entirely on film, and it spurred protests in the U.S. The jurors—11 of whom were white and one black—told the judge Monday they were unable to reach a unanimous decision on murder and manslaughter charges, prompting a mistrial. The jury had deliberated for four days, and the decision ultimately came down to one juror. On Friday, this juror had passed a note to the judge saying, “I understand the position of the court, but I cannot in good conscience consider a guilty verdict.” Prosecutors will now decide whether to retry the case. Slager still faces federal civil-rights violation charges, for which he could spend life in prison.

Paris Will Sell 'Love Locks' to Benefit Refugees

The famed “love locks” chained to Paris’s Pont des Arts bridge are once again being removed by the city—this time to benefit refugees. Paris City Hall announced that beginning next year it would sell an estimated 10 tons worth of locks chained to the bridge, the proceeds of which would go toward groups helping refugees in the city. Bruno Julliard, the first deputy mayor of Paris, said Wednesday the sale would be open to the public with the goal of raising up to 100,000 euros ($107,640). The initiative comes one year after the city began installing plastic panels to prevent tourists from taking part in the time-honored tradition that nearly caused the bridge to collapse under the weight of the locks.

North Carolina's Governor McCrory Concedes Race to Roy Cooper

Pat McCrory, the Republican governor of North Carolina, conceded Monday the election to his Democratic challenger, Roy Cooper, bringing an end to the nation’s longest-running governor’s race. As my colleague David Graham writes: “The governor’s concession ends a protracted finish to the campaign, and it comes even as some questions remain outstanding about the race.” Read David’s piece here.

Jayalalitha Jayaram, Chief Minister of India's Tamil Nadu State, Dies

(George Francis / Reuters)

Jayalalitha Jayaram, who for nearly three decades dominated the politics in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state, has died, the hospital where she was being treated in Chennai and the political party she headed confirmed Monday. She was 68 and had been receiving medical treatment since September. Jayalalitha, as she was known, was one of India’s most popular politicians. A former actress, she was chief minister of Tamil Nadu when she died, a position she’d occupied on four occasions since 1991. Her supporters called her “Amma,” Tamil for mother, and her popularity was undiminished despite being jailed for corruption in 2014. Jayalalitha suffered a heart attack on Sunday and there were fears her death could prompt unrest in the state, which saw riots in 1987 when her political mentor (and costar in the movies), M.G. Ramachandran, the former chief minister, died. To explain the esteem in which Jayalalitha was held, consider this: When she was first hospitalized in September, the state government held Cabinet meetings with a photograph of the chief minister in front of her deputy, O.P. Panneerselvam. Critics accused Jayalalitha of fostering a cult of personality, but during her rule, Tamil Nadu became an Indian industrial and software powerhouse.

Manuel Valls Launches Bid for French Presidency

Vincent Kessler / Reuters

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced Monday his bid to run in the Socialist party’s primary next month, where he will face at least four rivals to lead the Socialist ticket in next year’s presidential election.

Valls said he would end his role as prime minister Tuesday to focus on his candidacy, which he characterized as “a revolt against the idea that the left is disqualified from this presidential election.” The 54-year-old lawmaker’s bid was widely anticipated after President François Hollande’s announced Thursday that we would not seek reelection, opening the door for Valls to succeed him at the head of the Socialist ticket. If Valls secures the Socialist nomination in next month’s primary, he will face François Fillon, the Republican, Emmanuel Macron, the independent, and Marine Le Pen of the National Front.

Pakistan Hotel Fire Kills at Least 12 People

Volunteers help a woman escape the fire that broke out in a four-star hotel in Karachi, Pakistan on December 5, 2016. (Shakil Adil / AP)

At least a dozen people were killed and some 75 injured after a fire broke out Monday at the Regent Plaza hotel in Karachi, Pakistan, according to local media. The fire started in the kitchen on the ground floor of the hotel, eventually sweeping through the building with many guests still trapped inside. Tehseen Siddiqui, the chief fire officer, told Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper that though the fire was contained “quite early”—it took firefighters approximately three hours to contain the blaze—many guests suffocated from the smoke that was circulated by the hotel’s air-conditioning system. Siddiqui added the Regent lacked a fire exit and was equipped with smoke detectors that didn’t work. Guests who did escape evacuated through the hotel’s windows, with some using bedsheets as ropes to climb down. The hotel countered claims it was unprepared for the fire in a series of tweets Monday, criticizing the fire brigade’s rescue efforts and adding that “had the fire brigade started their operation on time, many precious lives could have been saved today.”

Owner of the Pulse Nightclub Won't Sell Building to Orlando

(Carlo Allegri / Reuters)

Barbara Poma, the owner of the Pulse nightclub said Monday she won’t sell the building to the city Orlando, which had planned to turn it into a memorial for the victims of the June 12 shooting that killed 49 people. Poma, in a statement released by her attorney, said she “can’t just walk away” from the club, which “means so very much to my family and to our community.” The Orlando Sentinel quoted Heather Fagan, Mayor Buddy Dyer's deputy chief of staff, as saying the city understood “that this was an incredibly difficult decision for the owners.” As we reported last month, Dyer said Orlando would buy Pulse, keep the site as is for about 12 to 18 months, while it heard from the community about the type of memorial the city should build. The deal was worth about $2.25 million, considerably more than the property’s appraised value. The building has been empty since a gunman who pledged allegiance to ISIS opened fire during a dance party at the venue, a pillar of Orlando’s gay community.

Uzbekistan Gets a New President

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan’s prime minister and interim president, secured a landslide victory in the country’s presidential election Monday, Agence France-Presse reports. Mirziyoyev earned 88.6 percent of the vote, according to the country’s Central Election Commission—a margin not unlike that enjoyed by Islam Karimov, the country’s longtime president who died in September of a stroke after a nearly three-decade rule. Mirziyoyev faced three little-known rivals in the presidential contest, prompting some international observers to criticize the election in the former Soviet Republic as being “devoid of genuine competition.” The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported indications of fraud, including ballot-box stuffing and proxy voting.

Judge Rules Dylann Roof Can Rehire His Lawyers

(Jason Miczek / Reuters)

A federal judge in South Carolina ruled Monday that Dylann Roof, the white man accused of killing nine black churchgoers in June 2015, can rehire his lawyers for the first phase of his trial. Last week, Judge Richard Gergel of the Federal District Court in Charleston ruled that Roof can represent himself in his death-penalty trial. But over the weekend, Roof asked Gergel if he could use his attorneys during the guilt phase, but still represent himself during the penalty phase. Gergel said yes Monday, but warned Roof that he can’t change his mind again. Federal authorities say Roof targeted the parishioners at the Emanuel AME church in Charleston because they were black. Prosecutors have sought the death penalty.

Oakland Fire Toll Rises to 36

(Lucy Nicholson / Reuters)

The death toll from the fire at a converted warehouse in Oakland, California, has risen to 36 and is expected to increase, Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton of the Oakland Fire Department said early Monday. Between 50 and 100 people were believed to have been inside the warehouse when the fire broke out. Eleven of those victims have so far been identified. Rescue work in the rubble of the two-story building was halted after midnight because of a wall that was leaning precariously, Drayton said. People had gathered at the warehouse Friday night for an electronic dance party. As we reported Sunday, the cause of the fire is not yet known. Officials said no fire alarms appeared to have been activated.

Bob Dylan Sends a Speech to the Nobel Awards Ceremony

(Ki Price / Reuters)

Bob Dylan, this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, has sent a speech that will be read at the Nobel banquet in Stockholm on December 10, the committee that awards the prize announced Monday. The famously reclusive singer took days to respond to the prize, eventually saying the news “left me speechless.” But in an interview with The Telegraph in October, he said he would collect the award in Stockholm “if it’s at all possible.” Apparently it is not, but his speech will be read on Saturday. The Nobel committee said Patti Smith will perform Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” at the award ceremony.

Court of Arbitration for Sport Upholds Sepp Blatter's Ban

Sepp Blatter (Pierre Albouy / Reuters)

The highest judicial body in sports has upheld the six-year ban imposed by FIFA on Sepp Blatter, the longtime chief of soccer’s governing body. In March Blatter had appealed the ban imposed by FIFA the previous month to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). CAS ruled Monday that it had “determined that the sanction imposed was not disproportionate.” That means the six-year ban imposed on Blatter, as well as the 50,000 Swiss francs fine (about $50,000), will stand. Blatter was found to have made a $1.65 million payment to Michel Platini, the former French soccer great who served as head of UEFA. CAS called that payment “an undue gift” that had “no contractual basis.” The ban on Platini was reduced over the summer from six years to four.

U.K. Supreme Court Hears Brexit Case

U.K.’s Supreme Court heard an appeal Monday on whether Parliament should have say over how to trigger “Brexit.” The U.K. High Court, a lower court, ruled last month that lawmakers must vote on whether to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty—the formal mechanism that would begin negotiations for the country’s departure from the European Union. The government contended Monday that Parliament, when it had agreed to the referendum, had also implicitly agreed that ministers would invoke Article 50. The hearing at the Supreme Court is expected to last four days. A verdict is expected next month, and could have consequences for how Brexit is triggered. Nearly 52 percent of voters chose to leave the EU; about 48 chose to stay. Although those who want the U.K. to remain in the EU are hoping that a victory at the Supreme Court will lead lawmakers to reject the results of the referendum, such an outcome is highly unlikely.

Japan's Prime Minister to Visit Pearl Harbor

(Thomas Peter/ Reuters)

Shinzo Abe will become Japan’s first prime minister to visit Pearl Harbor, he announced Monday. “We must never repeat the horrors of war,” Abe said. “Looking to the future, I want to demonstrate that resolve to the world.” President Obama is expected to accompany Abe on his visit to Pearl Harbor, the attack on which by the Japanese military in 1941 resulted in the U.S. entering World War II. Abe is scheduled to visit Hawaii for two days starting December 26. His announcement comes months after Obama became the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima, the Japanese city bombed by the U.S. with an atomic device in 1945, an act that hastened Japan’s surrender in the war.

Trump Criticizes China on Currency Devaluation, South China Sea

(Mark Kauzlarich / Reuters)

President-elect Donald Trump used Twitter to criticize China for its devaluation of the yuan and its military activities in the South China Sea, which have worried its neighbors. On Friday, he became the first American president or president-elect to talk to the leader of Taiwan since 1979. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province. The president-elect named Ben Carson to be his housing secretary. He could name a secretary of state this week.

Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into..

European Markets Stabilize After Renzi's Resignation

Exit, Renzi (Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters)

Italian markets, and indeed markets across Europe, are rallying after Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s resignation Sunday. He stepped down after voters clearly rejected in a referendum constitutional changes that would have, among other things, downgraded Italy’s Senate and centralized powers in the hands of the executive. Renzi had hoped to use the changes to streamline decision-making in Italy. The “no” vote had consistently led in opinion polls, and the prime minister had said he would resign if the changes were rejected. There were fears that the vote, combined with Renzi’s resignation, would trigger both political and economic uncertainty. That appears to have been averted for now. Pier Carlo Padoan, Italy’s widely respected finance minister, is expected to be named caretaker prime minister.

Most Popular

The president has been intervening in the process of producing a border wall, on behalf of a favored firm.

Updated at 10:20 a.m. ET on May 25, 2019.

Many of the tales of controversy to emerge from the Trump administration have been abstract, or complicated, or murky. Whenever anyone warns about destruction of “norms,” the conversation quickly becomes speculative—the harms are theoretical, vague, and in the future.

This makes new Washington Post reporting about President Donald Trump’s border wall especially valuable. The Post writes about how Trump has repeatedly pressured the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Homeland Security to award a contract for building a wall at the southern U.S. border to a North Dakota company headed by a leading Republican donor.

The story demonstrates the shortcomings of Trump’s attempt to bring private-sector techniques into government. It shows his tendency toward cronyism, his failures as a negotiator, and the ease with which a fairly primitive attention campaign can sway him. At heart, though, what it really exemplifies is Trump’s insistence on placing performative gestures over actual efficacy. And it is a concrete example—almost literally—of how the president’s violations of norms weaken the country and waste taxpayer money.

In war, the temptation to take revenge is strong. Fighting that temptation is a commanding officer’s job.

“We fight with the values that we represent; we don’t adopt those of our enemy.” This is what I told the Marines standing in a loose semicircle around me on our forward operating base outside Karmah, Iraq, one day in December 2008. “If we lose sight of that, we’ve got nothing left.” I meant every word. For many of us it was becoming harder to make sense of the war in Iraq, but we needed to believe that we were fighting for something. Most could articulate a version of that argument themselves during squad-level discussions back in Hawaii, but now it was hard to tell what impact my words were having. I watched the familiar faces as I spoke. Some nodded, others looked at the ground, shifting their feet on the gravel or gazing back impassively, their expressions a reflection of the gray skies and drizzling rain.

An ancient faith is disappearing from the lands in which it first took root. At stake is not just a religious community, but the fate of pluralism in the region.

T

he call came in 2014, shortly after Easter. Four years earlier, Catrin Almako’s family had applied for special visas to the United States. Catrin’s husband, Evan, had cut hair for the U.S. military during the early years of its occupation of Iraq. Now a staffer from the International Organization for Migration was on the phone. “Are you ready?” he asked. The family had been assigned a departure date just a few weeks away.

“I was so confused,” Catrin told me recently. During the years they had waited for their visas, Catrin and Evan had debated whether they actually wanted to leave Iraq. Both of them had grown up in Karamles, a small town in the historic heart of Iraqi Christianity, the Nineveh Plain. Evan owned a barbershop near a church. Catrin loved her kitchen, where she spent her days making pastries filled with nuts and dates. Their families lived there: her five siblings and aging parents, his two brothers.

In theory, Amazon is a site meant to serve the needs of humans. The mega-retailer’s boundless inventory gives people easy access to household supplies and other everyday products that are rarely fun to shop for. Most people probably aren’t eager to buy clothes hangers, for instance. They just want to have hangers when they need them.

But when you type hangers into Amazon’s search box, the mega-retailer delivers “over 200,000” options. On the first page of results, half are nearly identical velvet hangers, and most of the rest are nearly identical plastic. They don’t vary much by price, and almost all of the listings in the first few pages of results have hundreds or thousands of reviews that average out to ratings between four and five stars. Even if you have very specific hanger needs and preferences, there’s no obvious choice. There are just choices.

Just as the anti-vaccination movement feeds off a handful of fringe outsiders, long-standing stereotypes about Jews have found a new vector in the latest outbreak of the disease.

As the measles has spread in and around New York, so has anti-Semitism.

Amid an outbreak largely attributed to the anti-vax movement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disclosed that, as of mid-May, 880 cases have been confirmed nationwide in 2019, “the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1994 and since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.” Since September 2018, 535 cases have been confirmed in Brooklyn and Queens alone, largely concentrated in Orthodox Jewish communities. Another 247 cases have been confirmed in Rockland County, north of New York City, also largely among Orthodox Jews.

The spread of measles is matched by a twin pathology. Since the start of the latest measles outbreak last fall, the Anti-Defamation League has seen a spike in reports of harassment specifically related to measles, yet another expression of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S.: pedestrians crossing the street to get away from visibly Jewish people, bus drivers barring Jews from boarding, and people tossing out slurs such as “dirty Jew.”

Smith College’s annual commencement ceremony begins like any other: Graduating seniors at the women’s liberal-arts college are called up one by one to collect their diploma from the president. Perhaps some students exchange a wink with the regalia-clad honorary-degree recipients nearby as they stride across a platform overlooking the dorms they’d for years called home; others may pause to flip their cap’s tassel while blowing a kiss to the sea of parents who have long awaited this milestone commemorating their daughter’s metamorphosis from undergraduate to alumna.

Except the moment, technically, hasn’t happened quite yet: The name, degree, and accolades printed inside each padded holder seldom belong to the woman who receives it. They very likely belong, rather, to one of her nearly 700 classmates.

Naturopaths have long been obsessed with a gene called MTHFR. Now vaccine skeptics are testing for it too.

David Reif, now a biologist at NC State, realized his old paper had taken on a dangerous second life when he saw it cited—not in the scientific literature, but in a court case.

The paper was titled “Genetic Basis for Adverse Events after Smallpox Vaccination,” and it came up in 2016 when a vaccine-skeptical doctor tried to argue that it explained her patient’s development delays. The court was not persuaded, but Reif’s co-authors began hearing of yet other doctors using DNA tests to exempt patients from vaccines. Just this month, San Francisco’s city attorney subpoenaed a doctor accused of giving illegal medical exemptions from vaccination, based on “two 30-minute visits and a 23andMe DNA test.” On anti-vaccine blogs and websites, activists have been sharing step-by-step instructions for ordering 23andMe tests, downloading the raw data, and using a third-party app to analyze a gene called MTHFR. Certain MTHFR mutations, they believe, predispose kids to bad reactions to vaccines, possibly even leading to autism—a fear unsupported by science.

“Every classmate who became a teacher or doctor seemed happy,” and 29 other lessons from seeing my Harvard class of 1988 all grown up

On the weekend before the opening gavel of what’s being dubbed the Harvard affirmative-action trial, a record-breaking 597 of my fellow members of the class of ’88 and I, along with alumni from other reunion classes, were seated in a large lecture hall, listening to the new president of Harvard, Lawrence Bacow, address the issue of diversity in the admissions process. What he said—and I’m paraphrasing, because I didn’t record it—was that he could fill five whole incoming classes with valedictorians who’d received a perfect score on the SAT, but that’s not what Harvard is or will ever be. Harvard tries—and succeeds, to my mind—to fill its limited spots with a diversity not only of race and class but also of geography, politics, interests, intellectual fields of study, and worldviews.

To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands.

To feel relief at my mother’s being dead was once unthinkable, but then the news came from Ireland. It would have crushed her. An immigrant’s daughter, my mother lived with an eye cast back to the old country, the land against which she measured every virtue. Ireland was heaven to her, and the Catholic Church was heaven’s choir. Then came the Ryan Report.

Not long before The Boston Globe began publishing its series on predator priests, in 2002—the “Spotlight” series that became a movie of the same name—the government of Ireland established a commission, ultimately chaired by Judge Sean Ryan, to investigate accounts and rumors of child abuse in Ireland’s residential institutions for children, nearly all of which were run by the Catholic Church.

SpaceX and its competitors plan to envelop the planet with thousands of small objects in the next few years.

In 1957, a beach-ball-shaped satellite hurtled into the sky and pierced the invisible line between Earth and space. As it rounded the planet, Sputnik drew an unseen line of its own, splitting history into distinct parts—before humankind became a spacefaring species, and after. “Listen now for the sound that will forevermore separate the old from the new,” one NBC broadcaster said in awe, and insistent that others join him. He played the staccato call from the satellite, a gentle beep beep beep.

Decades later, we are not as impressed with satellites. There have been thousands of other Sputniks. Instead of earning front-page stories, satellites stitch together the hidden linings of our daily lives, providing and powering too many basic functions to list. They form a kind of exoskeleton around Earth, which is growing thicker every year with each new launch.